Multi-message conversation summaries and annotations

Abstract

The disclosure herein describes a system for generating customizable summaries of multi-message conversations in email threads and other multi-message and multi-participant messaging applications. A summary icon is displayed if the number of messages in a thread exceeds a threshold number. Message data is cleaned and analyzed by ML models to generate feature vectors representing the messages content. Multiple loglinear regression models compute similarity between message sentences. Clustering algorithm(s) to generate a multi-message conversation thread summary based on the values. If the user selects the summary icon, the multi-message conversation thread summary is displayed. The summary includes summary sentences and/or annotations describing content of the messages in the thread, participants contributing to the messages in the thread, links back to the original messages in the thread and/or a count of the number of messages contributed by each participant.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. A system for providing multi-message conversation summaries, the system comprising:
 a processor; 
 a computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions that are operative upon execution by the processor to: 
 create a summary icon representing a multi-message conversation thread exceeding a threshold number of messages; 
 generate a customized summary of a plurality of messages in the multi-message conversation thread, the customized summary is presented within a summary display pane in response to a selection of the summary icon; 
 link a summary sentence in the customized summary to a source message in the plurality of messages; and 
 provide an annotation indicating an identifier associated with an author of a message in the plurality of messages from which a portion of the customized summary is extracted. 
 
     
     
       2. The system of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 a user-configurable template in a set of templates selected by a user, wherein data associated with the customized summary is presented to the user in a customizable summary format corresponding to the user-configurable template. 
 
     
     
       3. The system of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 a hover sender name option associated with at least one summary sentence in the customized summary, wherein activation of the hover sender name option triggers presentation of at least one name of a participant contributing at least one message in the plurality of messages. 
 
     
     
       4. The system of  claim 1 , wherein the customized summary further comprises:
 a first count value associated with a first identifier of a first participant, the first count value indicating a number of messages within the plurality of messages authored by the first participant; and 
 a second count value associated with a second identifier of a second participant, the first count value indicating a number of messages within the plurality of messages authored by the second participant. 
 
     
     
       5. The system of  claim 1 , wherein the summary is a first summary of a first plurality of messages associated with a first subject-matter within the multi-message conversation thread, the first summary comprising a customized summary of the first plurality of the messages and a first set of participants contributing at least one message in the plurality of messages, and further comprising:
 a second summary of a second plurality of messages associated with a second subject-matter within the multi-message conversation thread, the second summary comprising a second customized summary and a second set of participants contributing a message in the second plurality of messages. 
 
     
     
       6. The system of  claim 1 , wherein the instructions are further operative to:
 update the summary in real-time in response to receiving a new message in the multi-message conversation thread. 
 
     
     
       7. The system of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 a first link associated with a first sentence in the customized summary linked to a first source message in the plurality of messages, wherein selection of the first link triggers presentation of at least a portion of contents of the first source message; and 
 a second link associated with a second sentence in the customized summary linked to a second source message in the plurality of messages, wherein selection of the second link triggers presentation of at least a portion of contents of the second source message. 
 
     
     
       8. A method of generating customized multi-message conversation summaries, the method comprising:
 creating a summary icon representing a multi-message conversation thread exceeding a threshold number of messages; 
 generating a customized summary of a plurality of messages in the multi-message conversation thread in response to activation of the summary icon; 
 linking a summary sentence in the customized summary to a source message in the plurality of messages; and 
 providing an identifier associated with an author of a message in the plurality of messages from which a portion of the customized summary is extracted. 
 
     
     
       9. The method of  claim 8 , further comprising:
 generating the customized summary in accordance with a user-configurable template selected by a user. 
 
     
     
       10. The method of  claim 8 , further comprising:
 presenting an identifier associated with an author of a source message associated with a sentence in the customized summary in response to activation of a hover sender name option associated with the sentence. 
 
     
     
       11. The method of  claim 8 , further comprising:
 creating a set of nested summaries, the set of nested summaries comprising a first nested summary summarizing contents of a first plurality of messages corresponding to a first subject matter in the multi-message conversation thread and a second nested summary summarizing contents of a second plurality of messages corresponding to a second subject matter in the multi-message conversation thread. 
 
     
     
       12. The method of  claim 8 , further comprising:
 providing a list of users that contributed to a message in the plurality of messages indicating agreement to a decision. 
 
     
     
       13. The method of  claim 8 , further comprising:
 updating, within a summary display panel presented within a user interface device, the customized summary in response to receiving a new message in the multi-message conversation thread or user-provided feedback. 
 
     
     
       14. The method of  claim 8 , further comprising:
 providing a per-participant response count indicating a number of messages in the plurality of messages contributed by each participant in the set of participants. 
 
     
     
       15. One or more computer storage devices having computer-executable instructions for generating customized multi-message conversation summaries that, upon execution by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
 generate a customized summary of a plurality of messages in a multi-message conversation thread in response to selection of a summary icon representing the multi-message conversation thread exceeding a threshold number of messages; 
 linking a summary sentence in the customized summary to a source message in the plurality of messages; and 
 provide an identifier associated with an author of a message in the plurality of messages from which a portion of the customized summary is extracted. 
 
     
     
       16. The one or more computer storage devices of  claim 15 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 customizing presentation of the summary in accordance with a customizable summary format corresponding to a user-configurable template selected by a user. 
 
     
     
       17. The one or more computer storage devices of  claim 15 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 presenting an identifier associated with a participant contributing to at least one source message contributing at least a portion of contents to at least one summary sentence in response to activation of a hover sender name option associated with the at least one summary sentence in the summary. 
 
     
     
       18. The one or more computer storage devices of  claim 15 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 creating a set of nested summaries, the set of nested summaries comprising a first nested summary summarizing contents of a first plurality of messages and a second nested summary summarizing contents of a second plurality of messages. 
 
     
     
       19. The one or more computer storage devices of  claim 15 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 updating, within a summary display panel presented within a user interface device, the summary in real-time in response to receiving a new message in the multi-message conversation thread. 
 
     
     
       20. The one or more computer storage devices of  claim 15 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 annotating the summary, wherein at least one annotation comprises a per-participant response count indicating a number of messages in a plurality of messages contributed by each participant.